It’s not about a “piece of land here or there”, as the PA’s top Sharia judge clarifies, it’s a religious war. And Israel is not just a religious war between Muslims and Jews, but a shifting frontier in the larger war between Islam and the rest of the world. It’s another territory to be conquered on the way to Europe. And Europe is another territory to be conquered on the way to America.

There can be no peace in a religious war. Nor is there anything to negotiate.

“It isn’t possible to compromise on or negotiate over Jerusalem,” Habash had said. “In politics there can be compromises here and there… In politics there can be negotiation. However, in matters of religion, faith, values, ethics, and history, there can be no compromises.”

*********************************

Hamas has announced that President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has opened the “gates of hell.” Its Muslim Brotherhood parent has declared America an “enemy state.”

The Arab League boss warned that the Jerusalem move “will fuel extremism and result in violence.” The Jordanian Foreign Minister claimed that it would “trigger anger” and “fuel tension.”

“Moderate” Muslim leaders excel at threatening violence on behalf of the “extremists”.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) warned that recognizing Jerusalem will trigger an Islamic summit and be considered a “blatant attack on the Arab and Islamic nations.”

The last time the OIC was this mad, someone drew Mohammed. And wasn’t stoned to death for it.

According to the Saudi ambassador, it will “heighten tensions”. The Deputy Prime Minister of Islamist Turkey called it a “major catastrophe”. And the leader of the largest Muslim country in Europe, France’s Emmanuel Macron “expressed concern” that America will “unilaterally recognize Jerusalem.”

PLO leaders and minions meanwhile made it quite clear that now the dead peace process is truly dead.

The Palestinian Authority’s boss warned that recognizing Jerusalem will “destroy the peace process”. The PLO’s envoy in D.C. threatened that it would be the “final lethal blow” and “the kiss of death to the two-state solution”. A top PA advisor claimed it “will end any chance of a peace process.”

A day later, the peace process is still as alive and as dead as it ever was.

Since the chance of a peace process is about the same as being hit by lightning while scoring a Royal Flush, that “chance” doesn’t amount to anything. The peace process has been deader than Dracula for ages. And even a PLO terrorist should know that you can’t threaten to kill a dead hostage.

The only kiss of death here came from Arafat.

Peace wasn’t killed though. It was never alive. Because a permanent peace is Islamically impossible.

Habash isn’t just the bigwig of Islamic law, he’s also the Islamic adviser to the leader of the Palestinian Authority. And Abbas, the terror organization’s leader, was there when Habash made his remarks.

Previously Habash had declared that the Kotel, the Western Wall of the fallen Temple, the holiest site in Judaism, “can never be for non-Muslims. It cannot be under the sovereignty of non-Muslims.”

While the official warnings from the Palestinian Authority, the Arab League and assorted other Islamic organizations have claimed that recognizing Jerusalem threatens the non-existent peace process, Habash had in the past had made it quite clear that the issue wasn’t land, it was Jihad.

“The struggle over this land is not merely a struggle over a piece of land here or there. Not at all. The struggle has the symbolism of holiness, or blessing. It is a struggle between those whom Allah has chosen for Ribat and those who are trying to mutilate the land of Ribat,” Habash had declared.

Ribat means that Israel is a frontier outpost between the territories of Islam and the free world. The Muslim terrorists who call themselves “Palestinians” have, according to the Abbas adviser, been chosen for “Ribat” to stand guard on the Islamic frontier and expand the territories of Islam.

The sense of Ribat is that the Jihadists may not yet be able to win a definitive victory, but must maintain their vigilance for the ultimate goal, which a Hadith defines as performing Ribat “against my enemy and your enemy until he abandons his religion for your religion.”

That is what’s at stake here.

It’s not about a “piece of land here or there”, as the PA’s top Sharia judge clarifies, it’s a religious war. And Israel is not just a religious war between Muslims and Jews, but a shifting frontier in the larger war between Islam and the rest of the world. It’s another territory to be conquered on the way to Europe. And Europe is another territory to be conquered on the way to America.

There can be no peace in a religious war. Nor is there anything to negotiate.

“It isn’t possible to compromise on or negotiate over Jerusalem,” Habash had said. “In politics there can be compromises here and there… In politics there can be negotiation. However, in matters of religion, faith, values, ethics, and history, there can be no compromises.”

There’s an extremely thin line in Islamic theocracy between politics and religion. But what Habash is really saying is that there might be room to negotiate how many times a week the garbage truck comes to pick up the trash, but not who gives him the orders. Islamic supremacism is non-negotiable.

The Supreme Sharia judge warned Trump that moving the embassy is “a declaration of war on all Muslims.” Why all Muslims? Because the “Palestinians” are a myth. Islamic conquests are collective.

And it’s not as if any of the Muslim leaders disagree.

Why is Jerusalem their business? It’s not empathy for the “Palestinians”. Kuwait ethnically cleansed huge numbers of them. They aren’t treated all that much better in other Arab Muslim countries.

It’s not about them. The Muslim settlers in Israel are just there as “Ribat”. They’re the frontier guard of the Islamic conquest. Much like the Sharia patrols in the No-Go Zones of Europe or the Jihadists in Kashmir, the Rohingya in Burma and all the other Islamic Volksdeutsche variants of occupying colonists.

Sunni may fight Shiite. Muslim countries, tribes and clans may war with each other. But the land they’re fighting over belongs to all of them collectively.

It can never belong to non-Muslims. That is the essence of Islam where conquest is religion.

That’s true of Jerusalem. And of the entire world.

That is what is truly at stake in the war over Jerusalem. When countries refuse to move their embassies to Jerusalem, they are submitting to Sharia law and Islamic supremacism. The issue at stake is the same one as drawing Mohammed. It’s not about a “piece of land”. It’s about the supremacy of Islam.

Refusing to move the embassy doesn’t prevent violence. Islamic terrorism continues to claim lives in Jerusalem. And Islamic violence has been a constant before Israel liberated Jerusalem or before there was even a free Israel. The Arab League, the Jordanians, the Saudis and the rest of the gang aren’t promising an end to the violence. Instead they warn that if we don’t obey, it will grow worse.

That’s not diplomacy. It’s a hostage crisis.

President Trump made the right decision by refusing to let our foreign policy be held hostage. We don’t win by giving in to terrorists.

We win by resisting them. Or else we’ll have to live our lives as hostages of Islamic terror.

Jerusalem is a metaphor. Every free country has its own Jerusalem. In America, it’s the First Amendment. Our Jerusalem is not just a piece of land, it’s a value. And the Islamic Jihad seeks to intimidate us into giving it up until, as the Hadith states, we abandon our religion for Islam.

Moving the embassy to Jerusalem will do much more for America than it will for Israel.

The Israelis already know where their capital is. We need to remember where we left our freedom. Islamic terrorists win when they terrorize us into being too afraid to do the right thing.

President Trump sent a message to the terrorists that America will not be terrorized.

Previous administrations allowed the terrorists to decide where we put our embassy. But Trump has made it clear that we won’t let Islamic terrorists decide where we put our embassies, what cartoons we will draw or how we live our lives. That is what real freedom means.

What do you do when they untruthfully blame Israeli “settlements,” expressly including home construction in Jewish Jerusalem, for the failure of their botched peace process, and then abstain as the U.N. Security Council savages Israel, and only Israel, for obstruction of peace diplomacy?

You pray for new leaders in the United States who will right the wrongs, defy the rotten and callous consensus, be willing to introduce a dose of realism and truth-telling to the Arab-Israeli dynamic, and be brave enough to say, at least, that Jews have profound rights in Jerusalem and that the U.S. recognizes the indisputable fact that Jerusalem functions as Israel’s capital, justifiably so. And that the American Embassy will move to Jerusalem, as should all embassies.

You pray that somebody with Trump’s gumption will come along, become president of the United States, and do what he has just done.

******************************

The Palestinians have no one to blame except themselves for President Donald Trump’s declaration on Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem. The same goes for European leaders, who were busy this week condemning Trump’s move.

The Palestinians and the Europeans brought this on themselves by running an ugly campaign of denialism and denigration against Israel. Their brazen persistence in delegitimizing the Jewish people’s historic roots and rights in Jerusalem led to this defiant and ultimately honorable result: a reassertion of reality.

Over the past decade, and certainly since he rejected then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s 2014 peace initiative, President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority has been on an outrageous path, an assault on the core identity of Jews and Israelis and an offensive to deny the most fundamental, basic building blocks of Jewish connection to Jerusalem and the Land of Israel.

At Abbas’ express urging, UNESCO has adopted insane and nonsensical resolutions declaring Jerusalem an exclusively Muslim heritage city and criminalizing Israel’s custodianship of the holy city. Most of Israel’s European allies went along with this affront, either voting for or abstaining on the resolutions.

So what do you do when the Big Lie is evident everywhere, and no one seems to care about the truth? What do you do when Abbas repugnantly engages in gross inversions of reality and says that Israel is “paving the way for bitter religious conflict” that he doesn’t want – when, in fact, it is he who is driving the conflict, not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Israel?

What you do is keep the faith, and re-assert basic truths, such as the fact that for 3,000 years Jerusalem has been the Jewish people’s ancient patrimony and that for 70 years Jerusalem has been the sovereign capital of the State of Israel.

What do you do when Abbas shamefully, regularly and falsely accuses Israel of committing “violations” against Islamic and Christian holy sites, including the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, when it is his Waqf Muslim religious trust that has turned Al-Aqsa into an armed fortress and turned every Jewish visit to Judaism’s holiest site into a skirmish?

What do you do when it his Waqf that wantonly has dug up and destroyed thousands of years of Jewish archaeological treasures on the Temple Mount, and the world has stood by without protest? What do you do when Abbas’ people have destroyed Joseph’s Tomb, sought to destroy Rachel’s Tomb, and have run Christians out of Bethlehem?

You change the way Israeli (and hopefully now American) diplomats present Israel’s case by emphasizing Israel’s legal, historic and religious rights in this land, not just our security needs. You do not forfeit to the Palestinians the international discourse regarding human, national and civil rights, especially on Jerusalem.

You push back by declaring – against the advice of all the inveterate peace process experts and high-and-mighty European commissioners – that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital, plain and simple.

What do you do when Abbas has the gall to call for “international protection for Palestinians in Jerusalem against assaults by the occupation army” and accuses Israel of “executing” teenage Palestinian terrorists, when it is Israelis who have to be afraid of Palestinian stonings, knifings and shootings in every corner of this country and who are (uncomfortably and heroically) restraining themselves from unleashing the full force of Israel’s military?

You demonstrate resilience. And you ask your good friends in the U.S., be they Republican or Democrat, evangelical or secular, to defend you and to affirm that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.

What do you do when the U.N. secretary general and the pope swallow every bit of Abbas’ bile about exclusive Arab rights in Jerusalem, while ignoring his denial of Christian history in Jerusalem? What do you do when they denounce “hateful discourse on both sides,” when there is no moral equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian discourse and no factual equivalence between Israeli and Palestinian propensities to violence?

You do not go running scared. You make the determination not to be cowed by yet more threats of Palestinian rage. You resolve not to melt from adopting moral policies just because of Arab stonings, stabbings, bombings and other forms of bullying.

What do you do when the president and secretary of state of your main ally, Barack Obama and John Kerry of the blessedly expired previous American administration, doubt Israel’s sincerity in maintaining calm on the Temple Mount and cast aspersions on the defensive measures taken by the Israel Police and IDF in response to Palestinian terrorism, when in fact Israel has studiously (and I think too diligently) maintained the status quo on Temple Mount, and its security forces have acted with immense restraint in response to Palestinian atrocities?

What do you do when they untruthfully blame Israeli “settlements,” expressly including home construction in Jewish Jerusalem, for the failure of their botched peace process, and then abstain as the U.N. Security Council savages Israel, and only Israel, for obstruction of peace diplomacy?

You pray for new leaders in the United States who will right the wrongs, defy the rotten and callous consensus, be willing to introduce a dose of realism and truth-telling to the Arab-Israeli dynamic, and be brave enough to say, at least, that Jews have profound rights in Jerusalem and that the U.S. recognizes the indisputable fact that Jerusalem functions as Israel’s capital, justifiably so. And that the American Embassy will move to Jerusalem, as should all embassies.

You pray that somebody with Trump’s gumption will come along, become president of the United States, and do what he has just done.

David M. Weinberg (www.davidmweinberg.com) is vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies.

Let’s peel back the blatant double standard behind the media’s Jerusalem outrage. And the claims that this will somehow destroy any possibility for peace.

Whenever the problem of peace is discussed, the prescription is always pressuring Israel, not the PLO.

Jerusalem was one of the pressure points.

Trump’s move applied pressure to the PLO’s Palestinian Authority in exactly the way that the left had wanted pressure to be applied to Israel. He did to the PLO, what Obama had been doing to Israel by covertly backing the PA’s statehood moves.

The double standard is that pressuring Israel in this way is deemed a very good thing because the Jews are somehow the obstacles to peace. While pressuring the PLO is a terrible thing because that will destroy the cause of peace.

Why is pressuring Israel a good thing and pressuring Islamic terrorists a bad thing?

That’s the bias that needs addressing.

It’s the PLO that has rejected every peace proposal. Despite the attacks on Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was Arafat and Abbas who made the decision to walk away from peace negotiations.

If anyone needs to be pressured to come to the table, it’s the PLO. And that is what President Trump did.

Israeli soldiers clash with Palestinians during a protest in the West Bank city of Hebron, following US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, on December 7, 2017. Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90

It is no secret in Ramallah or Nablus that King Abdullah of Jordan has fallen out of favor with the majority of Arab rulers, especially the Saudi crown prince and strongman, the UAE emir and the Egyptian president. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources reveal that Riyadh has gone so far as to cut off financial assistance to Amman.

*************************************

The Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas only found Jordan’s King Abdullah and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan to back him up Thursday, Dec. 7, in the first 24 hours after US President Donald Trump’s announced recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The Arab street’s first response was also minor in scale and pitch – less than 100 protesters at most of the rallies. Prepared for an outbreak of “the third Palestinian intifada (uprising)”, foreign correspondents arrived on the scene kitted up in helmets and vests, only to find a fairly low-key event to cover rather than a violent backlash. The Palestinian sources reported 140 injured so far, most of them from inhaling gas and three from rubber bullets.

The Palestinians were called out by their leaders to stage massive protest marches in East Jerusalem, Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin and Tulkarm, as well as at the Gaza border fence. Stones were hurled at Israeli troops and tires set on fire for the cameras, but nothing more lethal at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, for instance, than bottles of water. Only in Hebron did real clashes occur between security forces and protesters. They were broken up with tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets.

Extra Israeli security and military forces have been mobilized for the weekly Muslim Friday prayers at the mosques and Saturday. Will Palestinian protesters then turn out in force, as they have so many times before?

It must be said that, while most Arab and Muslim rulers have gone through the motions of condemning Trump’s pro-Israeli act, few are actively opposing it, which the Palestinian street has not been slow to notice. Their zeal for a violent confrontation with Israeli security forces is therefore less than expected – especially after their leader Abu Mazen had to fall back on the Jordanian king and Turkish president for support, instead of finding a rousing condemnation from the entire Arab leadership.

It is no secret in Ramallah or Nablus that King Abdullah of Jordan has fallen out of favor with the majority of Arab rulers, especially the Saudi crown prince and strongman, the UAE emir and the Egyptian president. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources reveal that Riyadh has gone so far as to cut off financial assistance to Amman.

Jordan has always been good friends with Turkey and so Abdullah flew to Ankara Wednesday to find a backer ahead of the Trump announcement. However, the ordinary Palestinian has a low opinion of President Erdogan and his efforts to set up an anti-American, Anti-Israel Islamic Front never found much response in Palestinian towns.

And so Abu Mazen’s panicky visit to Amman to talk with Abdullah is not expected to change the mood on the Palestinian street. At the same time, the situation is inflammable enough to catch fire in a trice. A large-scale Palestinian terrorist attack against Israel is always on the cards, and the potential for Israeli security forces facing a raging mob to inflict a large number of casualties cannot be ruled out for triggering a major outbreak.

Abbas is a failed leader who has missed opportunity after opportunity to shepherd his people toward a better and dignified life. While his words may sound good to some Israelis and many in the international community, we are left with the burning question: Exactly who does he represent and on behalf of whom is he exactly talking? The answer is that Abbas is a single-strategy demagogue whose one goal is to hold onto the power to sell mirages to the world until his last breath.

**********************************************

The PFLP, like Hamas and other Palestinian groups, makes no secret of its goal to “liberate Palestine, from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea.” All should be commended for their honesty. If anyone has any doubts, their plan means the total destruction of Israel. Thus, as chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas cannot say that he represents the entire organization. He has no leverage with the PFLP, DFLP and the remaining terror groups operating under the umbrella of his PLO.

And now we come to the million dollar question: Does Abbas really represent all of Fatah? The answer is simple and clear: No. Over the past few decades, Fatah has witnessed sharp divisions and disputes, resulting in a number of splinter groups that broke away and are now openly challenging Abbas’s leadership and policies.

While Abbas is making noises about a peace process, his own Fatah faction is inciting violence and calling for the destruction of Israel. While Abbas is talking about his interest in achieving a two-state solution, his partners in the PLO, including the PFLP and DFLP, are openly calling for the destruction of Israel and advocating an armed struggle. While Abbas is claiming that he is the legitimate president of the Palestinians, many Palestinians, including senior officials in his Fatah faction, are legitimately stating he has no mandate from his people to sign any agreement with Israel.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas continues to mouth his “desire” to achieve peace with Israel on the basis of a two-state solution. Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction and PLO partners, however, evidently have a different agenda: to wage war on Israel until the “liberation of all of Palestine.”

In a speech delivered on his behalf by Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, on November 30, Abbas repeated his commitment to a two-state solution based on international law and the 1967 “borders.”

Abbas called on the UN “to force Israel to recognize the State of Palestine based on the 1967 borders as the basis for a two-state solution, and to agree on a demarcation of borders in line with the resolutions of the international community.”

Abbas’s claim to a commitment to the “two-state solution” is a staple of his talks to the international community. It is just not clear who Abbas represents when he talks about the Palestinians’ commitment to a “two-state solution.”

In addition to his title as president of the Palestinian Authority, Abbas also holds the jobs of chairman of the PLO and Fatah, his ruling faction in the West Bank. Do Abbas’s statements regarding peace with Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel represent any of three these bodies? Hardly.

Abbas’s four-year term in office (as president of the Palestinian Authority) expired in January 2009. Since then, he is widely considered by Palestinians as an illegitimate president who does not have the authority to sign any peace agreement with Israel on behalf of a majority of his people. Many Palestinians will legitimately reject any agreement he signs with Israel on the grounds that the 82-year-old Abbas, who is now in his 12th year of his four-year term in office, is not a lawful leader.

Against this backdrop of zero confidence, any agreement Abbas signs with Israel would not be worth the paper it is written on.

Besides, the Palestinian Authority that he heads has no jurisdiction over the two million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip or millions of Palestinians residing in Arab countries and elsewhere around the world. At the very most, the PA would be able to implement such an agreement only on those parts it controls in the West Bank.

That is concerning to the PA, a self-ruled body that was established in accordance with the 1993 Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the PLO.

As for the PLO, of which Abbas is chairman, it is worth noting that it is an umbrella organization made up of various Palestinian factions. With the exception of Fatah, the largest faction (also headed by Abbas), the remaining groups are emphatically opposed to a peace process with Israel. Even worse, the other PLO groups continue to advocate an armed struggle against Israel.

Take, for example, the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a famous PLO terror group that does not believe in Israel’s right to exist and continues to engage in terrorism. The PFLP never misses an opportunity to state its support for violence and rejection of any peace agreement with Israel.

Here is what the PFLP thinks about efforts to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel:

“The PFLP confirms its categorical rejection of all international and Arab projects and ‘solutions’ that attempt to undermine the rights of Palestinian refugees and principally, their right of return, in the interest of proposals consistent with the Zionist vision if this fundamental issue.”

The PFLP, like Hamas and other Palestinian groups, makes no secret of its goal to “liberate Palestine, from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea.” All should be commended for their honesty. If anyone has any doubts, their plan means the total destruction of Israel.

Another PLO terror group, the Leninist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), for example, is equally dangerous and rejects any peaceful settlement with Israel. This is what the group had to say in a recent statementmarking the 69th anniversary of the “Nakba” (the “catastrophe,” a reference to the establishment of Israel in 1948):

“Let’s make the 69th anniversary of the Nakba a year to liberate our cause from the Oslo compromising ties, a year of national salvation and mobilization of our national forces against the Zionist project on every single inch of Palestine land.”

Some may argue that both the PFLP and DFLP are relatively small groups within the PLO, and that their words are insignificant. However, it is the actions of the terror groups, not only the rhetoric, that matters. With a long history of terrorism against Israel, the PFLP and DFLP will never accept any peace agreement with Israel. How can they accept any agreement when they are already calling for the abrogation of the Oslo Accords?

The PFLP and DFLP are not the only PLO terror groups opposed to any peaceful settlement with Israel. Among the other PLO terror groups are: The Palestinian People’s Party, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Arab Liberation Front and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front. Their shared ideology: rejection of Israel’s right to exist and commitment to terrorism as a way of “liberating all of Palestine.”

Thus, as chairman of the PLO, Abbas cannot say that he represents the entire organization. He has no leverage with the PFLP, DFLP and the remaining terror groups operating under the umbrella of his PLO. These terror groups would never — ever — sign on to a peace agreement between Abbas and Israel.

That leaves us with Abbas’s dominant Fatah faction. And now we come to the million dollar question: Does Abbas really represent all of Fatah? The answer is simple and clear: No.

Over the past few decades, Fatah has witnessed sharp divisions and disputes, resulting in a number of splinter groups that broke away and are now openly challenging Abbas’s leadership and policies.

Does Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas really represent all of his Fatah faction? No. Over the past few decades, Fatah has witnessed sharp divisions and disputes, resulting in a number of splinter groups that broke away and are now openly challenging Abbas’s leadership and policies. Pictured: Abbas (center) meets with the Central Committee of the Fatah movement July 13, 2014 in Ramallah. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)

Tensions within Fatah have intensified markedly in recent years, especially with the revolt spearheaded by Abbas’s arch-rival, Mohammed Dahlan. Dahlan, a former Fatah official and security commander ousted by Abbas, is currently based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and enjoys the backing of many Palestinian cadres, especially in the Gaza Strip. Dahlan and his supporters are working hard to remove Abbas from power with the help of the UAE and some Arab countries.

Moreover, Abbas’s two-state solution remarks and his avowals of opposition to terrorism also fail to reflect the views of some of Fatah’s top officials and media. A report presented by Palestinian Media Watch to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East details Fatah’s ongoing incitement and glorification of terror against Israel.

The divisions within Fatah are not limited to the political echelon only; they also extend to the faction’s various armed groups. This means that Abbas also does not represent all the armed groups of the faction that he is supposed to be heading under Fatah.

Here, for example, is what one of Fatah’s armed groups, Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — Battalion of Martyr Nidal Al-Amoudi thinks about Abbas’s two-state solution and peace with Israel: “We promise our people to pursue the path of armed struggle and the pure rifle until the liberation of all Palestine and its holy sites.” That statement by Abbas’s terror group was issued in the Gaza Strip on December 2. The occasion: Launching a “training” camp for Fatah terrorists named after Yasser Arafat.

Let us get things clear: While Abbas is making noises about a peace process, his own Fatah faction is inciting violence and calling for the destruction of Israel. While Abbas is talking about his interest in achieving a two-state solution, his partners in the PLO, including the PFLP and DFLP, are openly calling for the destruction of Israel and advocating an armed struggle. While Abbas is claiming that he is the legitimate president of the Palestinians, many Palestinians, including senior officials in his Fatah faction, are legitimately stating he has no mandate from his people to sign any agreement with Israel.

Abbas is a failed leader who has missed opportunity after opportunity to shepherd his people toward a better and dignified life. While his words may sound good to some Israelis and many in the international community, we are left with the burning question: Exactly who does he represent and on behalf of whom is he exactly talking? The answer is that Abbas is a single-strategy demagogue whose one goal is to hold onto the power to sell mirages to the world until his last breath.

By mid-week, the Trump administration should have reached a decision that indicates whether or not it has caved in under Palestinian threats. The next few days will also show whether the new US Middle East momentum is a flash in the pan or a fresh start to be continued.

*****************************************

The US hands-off to Iran’s top general in Iraq, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s changeover of sides in the Yemen war and Trump’s’ thinking on Jerusalem – all signal a new, proactive US strategy for the region.

Central Intelligence Agency chief Mike Pompeo was uncharacteristically frank when he addressed high-ranking US military and security officials on Saturday, Dec. 2, at the Reagan Presidential Foundation. He revealed that he had sent a note to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Al Qods chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and explained: “I sent it because he had indicated that forces under his control might in fact threaten US interests n Iraq.”

Soleimani replied that he had refused to open the letter, commenting: “It didn’t break my heart to be honest with you.” Pompeo went on to elaborate: “What we were communicating to him in that letter was that we will hold him and Iran accountable… and we wanted to make sure that he and the leadership of Iran understood that in a way that was crystal clear.”

Since words clearly don’t mean much without deeds, the United States, after being frozen in place for months in the Middle East, suddenly sprang into action in the past 48 hours, along with its senior Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, on four fronts: Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the Palestinians.

IRAQ: Large-scale US forces arrived at the Kaywan base-K1 west of the oil city of Kirkuk and then split into two contingents: several hundred troops stayed on base while the second contingent headed east on Friday, Dec. 1 towards Tuz Khumatu in eastern Iraq (See attached map) and took control of the Siddiq military airport 35km to the west. Tuz Khumatu lies 100km west of the Iraqi-Iranian border and 163km north of Baghdad. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that American troops have never been deployed so close to the Iranian border since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. This movement was meant to strongly advise Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi to stop playing ball with Iran to the extent that he did in mid-October, when he allowed pro-Iranian forces to grab Kirkurk and its oilfields from the Kurds. Washington was chiefly drawing a large X on Soleimani’s plan for bringing Northern Iraq’s oil under Iranian control.

SYRIA: Early Saturday, Dec. 2, Israeli warplanes dropped missiles on a secret meeting of pro-Iranian Shiite militia chiefs taking place at the Syrian army’s 91st Brigade HQ, outside al-Kiswah – 14km southwest of Damascus and 50km from the Golan. These militias, which have been fighting for Bashar Assad under Gen. Soleimani’s command, were being briefed by Iranian and Hizballah officers on their next offensive. This was Israel’s first attack on any of his forces.

YEMEN: On Saturday, Ali Abdullah Saleh, former president of Yemen, the mainstay of the Iranian-backed Houthi insurgency, announced he was “turning the page.” He was ready to ditch the Houthis and their backer, Iran – provided that the coalition (Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) lifted the blockade they had imposed on Yemen to cut off incoming Iranian weapons and halted its attacks. Saleh’s announcement sparked violent clashes between his followers and the Houthis.

DEBKAfile’s military sources recall that Yemen’s ex-president had long maintained ties with the CIA. His change of sides was timed to coincide with a fresh US-Saudi intelligence push to restore Saleh to the pro-Western Arab camp and topple pro-Iranian positions in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula.

ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS: The Trump administration is fed up with dodgy Palestinian tactics on peace negotiations. Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi and Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin-Salman are likewise ready to wash their hands of the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). US officials tried threatening to shut down the PLO office in Washington unless the Palestinians finally came to the table for peace talks and are now holding over Palestinian heads a possible decision – either to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem or recognize the city as Israel’s capital.

To ward off these actions, all Abu Mazen needs to do is to pick up the phone to the White House, the royal palace in Riyadh and the presidential residence in Cairo and declare his willingness to cooperate with their initiatives to restart the peace process. But so far, Abbas is holding out, resorting instead to his outdated tactics: threatening that the entire Middle East will go up in flames and Palestinian terrorism will again raise its head if the Trump administration goes through with new decisions on Jerusalem.

By mid-week, the Trump administration should have reached a decision that indicates whether or not it has caved in under Palestinian threats. The next few days will also show whether the new US Middle East momentum is a flash in the pan or a fresh start to be continued.

Although the full details of the proposed plan have yet to be made public, the Palestinians have already made up their mind: Whatever comes from Trump and his Jewish team is against the interests of the Palestinians.

The Palestinians’ rhetorical attacks on the Trump administration are designed to prepare the ground for their rejection of the proposed “ultimate solution.”

Take careful note: these warning shots may well be translated into yet another intifada against Israel under the fabricated pretext that the Americans and Israelis, with the help of some Arab countries, seek to strip the Palestinians of their rights. One wonders when the world will wake up to the fact that those rights have already been stripped from the Palestinians — by none other than their own brainwashing, inciting and corrupt leaders.

Over the past year, the Palestinians have managed to keep under wraps their true feelings about US President Donald Trump and his Middle East envoys and advisors. In all likelihood, they were hoping that the new US administration would endorse their vision for “peace” with Israel.

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas ensured that his spokesmen and senior officials spoke with circumspection about Trump and his Middle East advisors and envoys. The top brass of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah felt it was worth giving Trump time to see if he was indeed gullible enough to be persuaded to throw Israel under the bus and fork over their demands.

Well, that bus has long passed.

The Palestinians are now denouncing Trump and his people for their “bias” in favor of Israel. Even more, the Palestinians are openly accusing the Trump administration of “blackmail” and of seeking to “liquidate the Palestinian cause.” To top off the tone, the Palestinians are insinuating that Trump’s top Jewish advisors and envoys — Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman — are more loyal to Israel than to the US.

The Palestinians’ unprecedented rhetorical attacks on the Trump administration should be seen as a sign of how they plan to respond to the US president’s plan for peace in the Middle East, which has been described as the “ultimate solution.” Although the full details of the proposed plan have yet to be made public, the Palestinians have already made up their mind: Whatever comes from Trump and his Jewish team is against the interests of the Palestinians.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) meets with Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, on June 21, 2017 in Ramallah. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)

The Palestinian tone makes it clear that the Palestinian leadership and people have already relegated Trump’s peace plan to the trash-bin as nothing more than Israeli-American conspiracy, in collusion with some Arab countries, to impose a solution on the Palestinians and “liquidate” their cause.

To them, the “real” Trump is now apparent. This is how one Palestinian political analyst, Dr. Mazen Safi, reacted to Trump’s proposed peace plan and what he perceives as continued US support for Israel. “The US president and his administration have removed the mask from their face,” he stated. “They are paving the way for a new Israeli aggression on our people and moving the region toward an explosion.”

So what is really behind the Palestinian outrage with the Trump administration?

First, the Palestinians reject the idea of “regional peace” between Israel and Arab countries. The Palestinians maintain that peace between Israel and the Arab countries should come only after, and not before, the Palestinian issue is resolved. The Palestinians fear that any peace agreements between Israel and the Arab countries would come at their expense.

Echoing this fear, the Palestinian daily Al-Quds, which often reflects the views of the Palestinian Authority leadership, pointed out that the recent Arab League foreign minsters’ meeting in Cairo chose to focus on the Iranian and Hezbollah “threat,” breaking from the long-standing traditional obsession of the Arabs with the Palestinian issue. The Palestinians, according to the paper, feel abandoned by their Arab brothers.

“The Arab League meeting in Cairo came out with strong positions against the Iranian threat and didn’t hesitate to classify Hezbollah as a terrorist group,” Al-Quds complained in an editorial. “The meeting ignored the Palestinian cause. We are facing new Arab alliances against Iran, all under American pressure. This will have a negative impact on our cause.”

The Palestinian daily went on to lambast the floating Trump peace plan. It stated that the proposed plan, as published in various media outlets, “Doesn’t serve our interests and aspirations.”

Second, the Palestinians are furious with US threats to shut down the PLO’s diplomatic mission in Washington. They see the threat as an attempt to blackmail them not file charges of war crimes against Israel with the International Criminal Court. The Palestinians also see the threat as an attempt to force them to resume peace talks with Israel unconditionally.

“The US threat to close the PLO’s diplomatic mission in Washington shows disrespect for the Palestinian rights and blind bias in favor of Israel,” Al-Quds said in the same editorial. “It also coincides with growing hollow talk about a US peace plan that has been endorsed by President Trump.”

Third, the Palestinians are now openly talking about Trump’s Jewish advisors and envoys and their “influence” on him and his administration’s policies. This is something that Palestinian Authority officials had refrained from mentioning in the past year because it rings of out-and-out anti-Semitism. Now, however, Palestinian officials and political analysts do not seem to have a problem talking about the influence of the “Jewish lobby” on Trump’s decision-making process and policies.

Hassan Al-Batal, a political analyst closely associated with the Palestinian Authority, referred in a recent article to what he called “the three Jewish pillars of the Trump peace plan – Trump’s son-in law (Kushner), Middle East envoy (Greenblatt) and the US Ambassador to Israel (Friedman).”

Al-Batal expressed “regret” that the recent meeting of the Arab League foreign ministers chose to condemn Hezbollah and Iran. “Palestine is currently witnessing a crisis with Washington,” he said.

Bassam Abu Sharif, a former advisor to Yasser Arafat, went as far as referring to Trump’s Jewish advisors as a “dangerous clique.”

Abu Sharif said that he had no doubt that “what Kushner and his dangerous clique are planning is destructive and inhumane.” The US, he charged, has one major goal: to take full control of the Middle East and steal its resources for once and for all. This requires — according to their scheme — the liquidation of the Palestinian cause.”

Another political analyst, Talal Okal, who is also linked to the Palestinian Authority and its leadership, accused the Trump administration of “misinformation” and attempting to “blackmail” the Palestinians. Referring to the US demand that the Palestinians refrain from filing charges against Israel with the International Criminal Court and threatening to shut down the PLO’s diplomatic mission in Washington, Okal wrote:

“The US administration is practicing blackmail against the Palestinian leadership by demanding that the Palestinians engage in unconditional negotiations with Israel and that the Palestinians refrain from pursuing war crimes against Israel with the International Criminal Court. It’s obvious that the Trump administration is practicing a policy of misinformation.”

Palestinian political analyst Hani Habib claimed that the Trump administration was preparing to blame the Palestinians for the failure of the next peace process. The Palestinians, Habib said, “must be united in facing all forms of American-Israeli blackmail. The US administration’s threat to shut down the PLO’s diplomatic mission in Washington calls into question its ability to play the role of a fair and honest mediator.”

In an article entitled “Cheap American Blackmail,” columnist Omar Hilmi Al-Ghul complained: “The US administration is once again ignoring Palestinian rights and interests. It’s shamelessly and flagrantly seeking to confiscate the Palestinians’ independent decision-making process.”

Al-Ghul, too, made a reference to Trump’s Jewish team:

“The team surrounding Trump, which is in collusion with Israel, is acting in a way that contradicts what the Palestinian leadership wants — to maintain bridges with the US. The American blackmail of the Palestinian leadership is cheap and miscalculated.”

This conspiracy theory, which claims that Trump’s team cares more about Israel than US interests, is repeated in a statement by Fatah: “The US political blackmail contravenes international laws and resolutions pertaining to the Palestinian issue in particular and the peace process in general. This US position endorses the Israeli policy to end the two-state solution.”

The Palestinians’ rhetorical attacks on the Trump administration are designed to prepare the ground for their rejection of the proposed “ultimate solution.”

The Palestinians want it to be seen as a plan concocted by a few Jewish officials in the Trump administration who are more loyal to Israel than their own country, the US.

These officials, the Palestinians argue, have endorsed the position of the Israeli government and serve as its mouthpiece. That is why, they argue, the Palestinians are unable to accept a plan that is in effect a “Jewish-American conspiracy to eliminate the Palestinian cause.”

The Palestinians are also preparing the stage to accuse some Arab countries of “collusion” with this “conspiracy” — putting them on a collision course with Saudi Arabia.

The Palestinian message to the Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, should be seen as a warning shot: Collaborate with the Trump administration in the alleged scheme at your peril.

The anti-Trump Palestinian stance is sounding the death-knell for US administration’s effort to achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Take careful note: these warning shots may well be translated into yet another intifada against Israel under the fabricated pretext that the Americans and Israelis, with the help of some Arab countries, seek to strip the Palestinians of their rights. One wonders when the world will wake up to the fact that those rights have already been stripped from the Palestinians — by none other than their own brainwashing, inciting and corrupt leaders.